Former leading New Zealand publisher and bookseller, and widely experienced judge of both the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Montana New Zealand Book Awards, talks about what he is currently reading, what impresses him and what doesn't, along with chat about the international English language book scene, and links to sites of interest to booklovers.

Monday, April 25, 2016

Barcelona Bookstores Reinvent Themselves To Survive

Posted at 7:30AM Monday 25 Apr 2016

Faced with falling sales and the rise of ebooks, bookstores in Barcelona, the Spanish-language world's publishing capital, are remaking themselves as cultural centres that offer concerts, classes and hard to find books to draw customers. "We had to change. Either we reinvented ourselves or it was really impossible to stay open," said Montserrat Serrano, the lively owner of the +Bernat bookstore located just off the Diagonal, one of the main avenues in Spain's second-largest city.